As is well known in the art, modern rock and pop music bands use multi-piece drum sets for the percussive portion of the musical performance. These drum sets are floor mounted, and are typically played by a seated drummer. Such multi-piece drum sets typically include a snare drum, several tom-toms, one or more cymbals, and a floor-mounted bass drum. Although the snare drum, tom-toms and cymbals are all sounded (actuated) as a result of being struck by sticks that drummers holds in their hands, the bass drum is actuated by a beater assembly that is triggered by a foot action. The assembly that allows a drummer to use a foot to actuate the bass drum is most often called a “bass drum pedal”.
Bass drum pedals have existed for nearly a century. During most of that time period, bass drum pedals have been rather rudimentary in nature, typically including a contiguous pedal having a hinge point located near the floor, behind the heel of the drummer, and an inclining pedal, which attaches to a drum beater assembly through a linkage. Due to the inclining nature of the pedal, and where the hinge point is located, these prior art drum pedals are said to be actuated using the toe portion of the foot.
Although the hinge point for such pedals is located behind the heel, very often players do not rest their heel on the pedal while playing. Instead, they elevate their entire foot, and then raise and lower their entire leg to actuate the bass drum. This is called the “heel up” approach to playing the bass drum. The alternative approach is to keep the entire foot (including the heel) on the bass drum pedal at all times, and flex the foot toward the toe to actuate the bass drum pedal. This is called the “heel down” approach.
One problem with these prior art rudimentary pedals is that the pedal incline forces drum players to hyper-extend their foot in order to play the bass drum. The inclined orientation of the pedal is unnatural, often causing player fatigue. And although the “heel down” approach is used in virtually every other aspect of human life, it is generally uncomfortable to play in this way with prior art pedals. Because of the extended playing time, injuries to the user can result, such as shin splints when used on a regular basis and lengthy time periods.
Another problem with typical bass drum pedals is that they have a limited range of musical expression, essentially being limited to “one strike per actuation,” meaning that the drum is actuated once as the foot flexes forward. This means that when the drummer wants to play the drum very quickly, it requires very quick forward-foot-flexes in succession. A typical method of getting around this limitation is to add another bass drum pedal which may be used to actuate a separate bass drum, or may be used through a linkage that allows two bass drum pedals to actuate a single bass drum (i.e. allowing the drummer to use both his left and right feet simultaneously on separate pedals). This approach eases high tempo bass drum playing, because when high tempo bass drum playing is desired, the workload can be shared among each foot to play half of the beats. While this approach does allow for a greater degree of expression, including the ability to play “flams” on the bass drum, this approach doubles the cost and complexity of the bass drum portion of the drum set. Moreover, when both of the drummer's feet are placed on bass drum pedals, one foot cannot also be used to operate a separate drum effect, such as a hi-hat pedal.
Over the years, there have been several attempts to devise improved bass drum pedals. One approach is to place the pivot point at the toe, and allow the heel to be the sole actuating aspect of the foot. This approach helps to solve the unnatural hyper-extension of the foot at the toe, but past approaches appear to be sub-optimal, and are essentially absent in the marketplace.
Another approach to devise an improved pedal is to locate the hinge point in the center of the pedal, and allow somewhat of a back-and-forth “rocker” action to actuate the bass drum with both toe and heel foot actions. While this seems to be very useful, closer study reveals that this does not allow forceful-enough actuation of the bass drum, and this approach essentially reduces the power and force of the drum player's leg.
Another approach to devise an improved pedal is to actually use two separate foot pedals on a single assembly—one pedal to be actuated by the toe in a typical fashion, and a separate pedal to be actuated by the heel. In this type of assembly, the hinge-point for the toe-actuated pedal is located near the floor, at or behind the heel. The hinge-point for the heel-actuated pedal is located under the middle of the foot. Indeed, this type of pedal has improved ergonomics and is more comfortable for players, because the heel-actuated pedal essentially elevates the heel of the player, thus getting around the hyper-extension aspect of rudimentary prior-art pedals. However, the range of expression on these pedals appears to be limited. Because of the centrally-located hinge point in the heel-actuated pedal, a virtual pivot point in the middle of the pedal is created making the feel similar to a single contiguous pedal with a central pivot point. And if the drummer wanted to perform unusual bass drum beats, such as a “flam”, this is very difficult using this type of pedal.
There have been other approaches for using a single pedal with two drum beaters, and a kind of spring action that allows a single foot flex to create two separate actuated drum beats, but these approaches still locate the pivot point on the floor, behind the heel of the drummer, and use a strongly inclining pedal and toe actuation.
Therefore there remains a need for an improved bass drum pedal, one that does not require excessive hyper-extension of the foot while playing, and that also provides for a greater degree of expression while playing the drum.